


The Wasteland Survival Guide

by EmperorRen



Category: Fallout 76
Genre: Angst, Apocalypse, Camping, Canon - Video Game, Coming of Age, Fallout 76 - Freeform, Fallout Video Game References, Fallout:New Vegas References, Gen, Mentors, Nuclear Warfare, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Nuclear War, Postapocalyptic, Survival, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21619030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmperorRen/pseuds/EmperorRen
Summary: Jack has taken a new name and a new life out in the West Virginia Wasteland, fighting off raiders and cooking gourmet meals for one: the Enclave and civility behind him.But when he rescues a Vault Dweller who reminds him of his dead son, promising himself he intends only to teach the kid to survive, Jack will have to confront the person he’s become... and the world he’s helped create.(Lots of survival details... because after all: this IS the Wasteland Survival Guide.)
Kudos: 1





	The Wasteland Survival Guide

**Author's Note:**

> I am the biggest Fallout fanboy that ever breathed. I RP a lot online with Fallout 76, and after telling part of this story on Instagram and debating for a trillion years, I decided to just do the thing that makes me happy and write a fic. I love the world of this series... SO MUCH. You have no idea.
> 
> Also: if anyone reads this and wants their character included, hit me up and if you’re on Xbox, we’ll arrange to meet. ;)

_Rule Number One: you don’t always have to fight. That may seem funny, considering that the Wasteland is full of things that, if not actively trying to kill you, will at least help speed along your demise; but it’s the first and best lesson to learn. Take it from me. Stealth, caution, and discretion will absolutely save your life; it only takes one impulsive encounter to end it. So if you can get away quietly, you may just live to fight another day._

He was crouched down, boots planted in the dirt, when he heard the snuffling and snarling from behind his right shoulder.  _Dogs_ ,  he guessed, reaching back to slip the machete out of the loops that held it against his battered pack, as always hit by a surprising flash of regret; he’d give a lot for a good dog. A  sane  dog, a furry friend to sit and watch the sunset with... one last scrap of the world long gone, he supposed. But so far, every animal he’d seen had been wild with the change, scorched or slavering with the radiation, and he’d had to choose— life for him, or dinner for them. 

It still hurt. A little.

He hated killing dogs.

_Maybe if I’m lucky,_ he thought briefly, rising smoothly from one knee to a low, attentive crouch, _I can just vanish down the hill. No fuss, no muss, no blood to attract any bigger problems. And if I can get some miles on, I might just be able to settle somewhere solid before dark. Somewhere like home, even._

From further up the hill, obscured by a mound of rocks and grass, came a cry too desperate to be anything other than human.

_Rule Number Two: Always, always think before you jump blindly into any situation. There are a lot of people who need help out here; there are also a lot of people who want you to THINK they do. Living to fight another day means learning to tell them apart. You can either try to save everyone around you, or you can save yourself. Choose wisely._

Jack glanced back down the hill — one quick head-turn — before rubbing the heel of his hand hard against his forehead, knocking his hat askew and making his eyes burn. Of course, of course! But no matter how hard he tried to set his feet to leave, he found himself stepping not down and away but up, making sure his arm was clear to swing his weapon even as he crested the hill.

_It’s not dying I’m afraid of_ ,  he thought with a wry twist of his mouth, there and gone.  _It’s dying because I’m a fool._

It wasn’t dogs, he discovered at once. It was wolves.

Worse .

The two — three? — snarling beasts were snapping at something wedged behind a large rock, a tousle-haired something that was whimpering in a shadowplay of ginger and blue and blood red. Something that looked like—

_(NOAH)_

—for the barest half second, the quickest flash of pain like quicksilver through tired veins, and Jack was already moving. One wolf fell to his backhand machete before the others noticed and turned, and from there it was only a matter of a practiced sidestep, an eye for his target, dodging lunging teeth and a trio of blood splatters before he found himself facing

_(he’s not noah, noah is dead, noah is gone)_

the sniffling, cowering kid from where Jack stood almost over him. As always, the silence seemed loud enough to have weight, after the grunting and slashing and gnashing of teeth; that’s just how it was. But the kid looked like he was getting ready to panic, and Jack would be dipped and damned if he’d just derailed his day for this Vault-suited fuck only to have him bolt like a startled rabbit now. What did you say, though?  _“Sorry, for a second my brain overheated and thought you were my dead son”_ ? _ “Don’t mind me, it’s just the radiation” ?  _

Right.

_He doesn’t even look like Noah_ _,_ a slightly panicked voice in Jack’s mind tried to interject.  _His hair is red and he’s not even—_

“Don’t kill me,” the kid was saying now. His speech was halting and unsteady, as if speaking to another person was a skill he had only recently learned. “Why would you kill me? I don’t have anything worth taking. Why would you save me from those wolves and then kill me?”

Jack sank his teeth into his bottom lip for a second, huffing out a breath before he sighed. “Maybe,” he said quietly, wiping the machete on the grass and doing his best to scrub blood from between his fingers, “I was tracking those wolves for their meat and you just happened to get in the way.” 

He eyed the kid for a second. “Maybe you’ll be dessert.”

Vault Kid rolled his eyes a little, but at least he’d stopped looking like he was utterly immune to reason.  _Too bad for you,_ Jack thought,  _that even if I don’t mean it right now, there are plenty out here in the Wasteland who would. You’re prime cuts for those guys; better learn fast._

But would he, though? Or would he simply die over the next rise somewhere, a victim of his own inexperience?

_This. Is not. Your problem_ , a perfectly reasonable voice in Jack’s mind informed him. He agreed with it enthusiastically and affectionately. And his mouth opened anyway and what came out was “How is it that you’re out here in nothing but a vault suit? No supplies? Where are your people?”

The kid wiped at his face with the hand he’d been leaning on, and Jack saw that he’d been bitten fairly badly near that wrist. A damning injury out here to be sure, with no experience or firepower to back you up.

“I— they—“ On closer examination, he was obviously younger than twenty, scrawny from malnutrition and exhausted. 

Jack waited silently, shrugging off his backpack and taking in the bright blue-and-gold suit, the scrapes and bruises, all of it. Vault 76 had opened a year ago, and while Jack knew that of course there had been others, Vault suits still offered comparatively little protection against... well, everything. From sun to wind to rain to radiation, to a hundred creatures that stung and bit and clawed. That this kid had survived so long already was a miracle.

“All right,” Jack said briskly, “tell me later. Or don’t. Looks like you got bit pretty badly there, you hurt anywhere else?”

The boy looked startled, his injured hand pulling back to his lap as he stared.

_Okay then.We’re gonna be like that._

Once the urge to strangle him and toss his irritating fucking body right off a cliff had passed, Jack tried again. “You can take my help or not, but I was only out here to pick up some plants. I’ve got what I need, there is no reason I can’t just head on down the road.”

“Then DO IT!” the kid exclaimed, suddenly fiery. “Walk away and leave me, kill me, whatever, but quit fucking with me!” His voice betrayed him, though, cracking on the final word and dissolving into what very well might have been despair. He buried his head in his hands, smearing blood in crazy spikes through his sweaty hair. 

And Jack was... not impressed.

“Get a grip, Vault Kid,” he grunted, lowering himself to one knee and unbuckling the straps on his battered canvas backpack.

“My name is—“

“You’re Vault Kid, until further notice.” Jack tossed a handful of something small and white at the boy, still rummaging around in his pack. “There are a couple of bandages. Some swabs. You know how to dress a wound?”

“My name isn’t...” the kid sighed and gave up, stretching out his injured hand and gingerly examining the bite. “Yeah, I took certification in first aid. They asked for volunteers a couple years ago and I—“

“Great. Now listen.” Jack looked him over again, weighing a syringe in one palm. “This is a stimpak. You know how to—?”

“Throw it over here.”

“Fair enough.” Jack did so, watching as the kid checked the gauge, jabbed the needle into his thigh, and then leaned back against the rock, his thin body arching as the powerful medicine kicked in. The stimulation delivery packages were potent, and Jack was well-supplied enough to spare one. For now.

_Besides_ , he told himself,  _it’ll make dragging this kid along a whole lot easier if he’s not at death’s door._

“What’s your name?” Vault Kid asked suddenly, looking up from his now-healing wounds. “You appear out of nowhere and save my ass, I ought to know your name.”

Jack snorted. “Should I tell you my name is Shane, tip my hat before I ride off into the sunset?”

“Oh, fuck you.” Gingerly, carefully, the kid started struggling to his feet. “I’m trying to be a decent human being and you—“

“Rule number three, Vault Kid,” Jack overrode him smoothly. “There _is_ no default decency anymore. People aren’t big on the niceties out here, in case you haven’t noticed. Don’t expect them. It’sfoolish.”

“That’s such bullshit,  _Shane_ .” the boy finished standing, stretched his arms and legs experimentally, and nodded before turning his bitter gaze on Jack. “It’s just an excuse to take and use and hurt. ‘Rebuild society’, they said. ‘Make it better’, they said. But— this—“

“This was a war.” Jack shouldered the pack back into place, making sure the straps were settled and nothing was loose. “It still is, only now it’s for survival. And war never changes.” He smiled darkly. “Neither do people.” 

He threw a glance at the darkening sky and sighed. 

“If you want to stay and debate philosophy, you’re free to do that. But this is _not_ the place I want to spend the night.”  Although there are a lot of worse places.  “So I’m walking out of here. And I mean _now_.” 

Jack turned his back on the kid, slowly and deliberately. “You can come with me and maybe get a hot meal and a safe place to sleep, or you can do your own thing. But the time for discussion is over. Trust me or don’t.” 

Five steps down the hill, he thought the kid was staying. Ten steps down he heard a rustle and scramble behind him, and five steps after that he heard a muttered curse before Vault Kid fell in beside and slightly behind him. 

_Well. This is going to be an adventure._





End file.
